


Mother's Love

by chibioniyuri



Category: Red Queen Series - Victoria Aveyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 09:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18333329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibioniyuri/pseuds/chibioniyuri
Summary: The council erupts into loud voices as the news broadcast dies off, each fighting to be heard over the next. Maven sits frozen, staring at the now-dark screen. He should call the council to order. He should plan the counterattack. He should…. But his mind is filled with static and white noise, his vision clouded over.His mother is dead.





	Mother's Love

The council erupts into loud voices as the news broadcast dies off, each fighting to be heard over the next. Maven sits frozen, staring at the now-dark screen. He should call the council to order. He should plan the counterattack. He should…. But his mind is filled with static and white noise, his vision clouded over.

_His mother is dead._

He can’t process anything beyond that one thought. His mother is dead. It seems like a cruel joke. His mother is dead. 

Shouldn’t he have felt it? His mother entered into his mind so frequently, she said it was like a short bridge had been built between them. Easy to cross the distance between them. _**Mother?**_ He tried calling out, but there was no answer.

Barely months on the throne, not even half a year yet, and everything was collapsing around him. He’d just seen her that morning. It was meant to be a short trip: a personal visit to her pet project to determine if any foul play had resulted in a prisoner’s escape. In and out and back in time for tea, his mother had said. 

And then the broadcast had started and he’d been consumed by the sight of Mare, so much so that he hadn’t really registered the large man in uniform next to her, scarlet scarf bright at his throat, or the body laying disheveled at her feet. Not until Mare had reached down and hauled up his mother’s corpse by what little remained of her hair. That was what he’d found himself focused on. His mother’s charred hair, no longer gleaming, wrapped around those fingers. 

_His mother is dead._

He isn’t ready to be alone. He may have trained and learned and plotted for this role, but he’s a young king prone to mistakes. His mother had pointed out several just the previous week, teaching him valuable lessons that he wasn’t soon to forget. How to get strong, how to outthink the greedy nobles plotting for his throne, how to separate himself even further from what remained of his feelings. 

He’s going to mess this up. He’s going to fail, just like everyone expects him to. He’ll lose to Cal, and everything will be for nothing. He needs his mother. _He needs his mother._

_**This is not the king I raised you to be.** _

Her voice cuts through the panic. Only long years of habit stop him from startling out of his seat, from whipping his head around the room to find her. 

_**Mother?**_ He tries again.

_**You’re losing your grip on your council. Must I step in to fix everything? Gather their attention. Plan. You know the traitor’s next target; you’ve baited the trap well enough.** _

He doesn’t understand how her voice is still here when she’s dead, but the tone of scathing disappointment is familiar and calming. Awareness seeps back in. He feels his fingers clawing into the armrests and pulls them into fists instead. The ache is his jaw tells him he’s been grinding his teeth, so he deliberately relaxes and finds relief. The table he’s sitting at swims into view, and the dull din of voices around him come into focus again. 

He’s teetering over the abyss of a mad mob. It’s child’s play to redirect them. He repeats his mother’s whispers: a few words about the audacity of the Guard, and the might of the Norvan army, and how’ll they’ll pay in blood for the Queen’s murder, and they’re all putty in his hand.

Not half an hour later, he departs the council chambers to prepare. He’ll lead a squadron of Magnetrons and lay in wait for the Guard’s next move: the Dagger Legion.

His mother’s voice continues to whisper in his head, berating him for his loss of control in the room. It keeps his focus sharp on the task at hand and off the endless repeat of Mare’s face, Mare’s fingers, his mother’s hair and twisted features.

So long as his mother is here, with him, all is right. He cannot lose.


End file.
